Lifestyle

Greeting the New Year with a Stronger Relationship and a Brighter Outlook

As hard as it may be to believe, the New Year is almost upon us again, and huge numbers of individuals all around the world are already planning their New Year’s Resolutions, and are thinking about how best to hit the ground running following the next turn of the calendar cycle.

New Year’s can be a magical time for all sorts of different reasons, but most of all because of the fact that it offers the prospect of a fresh start and an opportunity to begin living more in line with your values and ideals, and in the pursuit of your dreams, while simultaneously leaving behind negative experiences, habits, and situations from the past.

The New Year can also be a magical time as it can set the stage for a major life event, such as a wedding — and largely for this reason, many people who have got engaged will plan their wedding at least a year in advance, so that it is “set apart” and doesn’t risk blending into the routine of everyday life.

Although the New Year can certainly be a magical time of transition and opportunity, however, it is unfortunately also the case that many resolutions and commitments for the New Year end up going unfulfilled, or become sidetracked, and many individuals find themselves feeling a sense of frustration as one year bleeds into the next without their engagement turning into a wedding, or their gym routine turning into a marathon-ready level of fitness.

Finding ways to ensure that you have the best possible chance of making meaningful changes in the New Year, while also meeting the New Year with a renewed zest for life, can be extremely positive and uplifting.

Without further ado, here are a few tips and suggestions that might help you in greeting the New Year with a stronger relationship and a brighter outlook.

Commit to doing something meaningful that you’ve been meaning to get around to for a while and make bookings

First things first: one of the most powerful and significant ways of ensuring that the New Year is a truly magical time, while simultaneously helping to give you a renewed sense of zest for life, is to use the opportunity to more firmly lock yourself into a commitment that you have already set for yourself.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this in practice is by turning an ongoing engagement to your significant other into a solid wedding plan, by making bookings and setting dates.

At the outset of your engagement, you’ve likely already exchanged tokens of your commitment and of your plans, such as Allurez engagement rings. But many engagements end up as ongoing but relatively undefined promises, for years at a stretch, before becoming set wedding plans.

Over the course of day-to-day life, it all too often ends up happening that we have a variety of dreams and ambitions that are deeply meaningful to us, but that we keep putting off for “one day,” only for that day to never end up arriving.

By consistently putting off these meaningful commitments and decisions, though, we frequently end up undermining our sense of zest and enthusiasm for life, and becoming more jaded as a result. In the context of an engagement, lacking solid plans can seem to undermine some of the magic of the commitment.

The New Year works as a perfect opportunity for tightening up meaningful commitments that you’ve already had in place, and turning them into solid plans that you can then build around.

In this way, you can use the New Year as a way of anchoring some of those major life milestones and finally meeting them.

Declutter and organize your living space in advance of the New Year to mark a new stage in your life

There’s a lot of power in decluttering and organizing your living space, and making it beautiful and appealing – which is likely one reason why Marie Kondo’s book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” has been such a great success.

Few things have the power of decluttering and tidying up your home, when it comes to helping to generate a renewed sense of momentum, and to move you past a particular rut or roadblock that you might seem to have ended up in.

For newly married couples in particular, decluttering and organizing a home can act as a way of marking a new stage in your lives together, and helping to define a new joint identity going forward.

Decorating your home with pictures of your wedding, shared mementos, and potentially child-friendly ornaments and arrangements, can be one way of welcome in the New Year and a new chapter in your lives.

Arrange for a getaway to reset and unwind

Sometimes, whenever we end up becoming overly caught up in a particular issue that’s concerning us in our day-to-day lives, or are simply too overworked and distracted, it can be extremely difficult – if not impossible – to maintain a balanced perspective and a sense of enthusiasm as well.

For many people, going away on vacation can be deeply enriching and eye-opening in no small part because it helps to give them a bit of distance from their problems and perceived limitations, and can allow room for viewing things from a new perspective, and with a new sense of enthusiasm and possibility.

Arranging for a getaway sometime around the New Year – either before, during, or after – can help you to experience a renewed sense of perspective and enthusiasm, and may also help to inspire you about the sorts of things you want to do going forward.

Not only can good vacation getaways help to alleviate a lot of stress and to encourage a more positive and optimistic outlook on life as a whole, but they can also serve as a real opportunity for bonding and connection amongst partners, as well as families.

In recent times, much of the uncertainty which has afflicted the globe has meant that stress levels have been elevated for huge numbers of people while, at the same time, opportunities for vacations and periods of relaxation have become more scarce — with some of the consequences including significant strain on relationships and a diminished ability to take a step back and take a breather.

Whether in the form of a delayed honeymoon that you’re finally going to go on with your significant other, or whether simply in the form of a weekend getaway somewhere warm, starting off your New Year with a vacation trip can be very uplifting and can help to solidify strong interpersonal connections in addition to acting as a great opportunity for some much-needed stress relief.

Commit to a hobby or event that you find daunting

Pre-committing to some challenge at the onset of the New Year can be a great way of adding a bit of extra energy and zest to your approach to everyday life – and can certainly also help to get you moving forward with a renewed sense of vigor.

Signing up to run a marathon or participate in an obstacle course fitness event, or to participate in a life drawing art class, are all examples of things that can help to get you out of your comfort zone, and can shake you out of a state of inertia, while helping you to be more driven and enthusiastic on a day-to-day basis.

These sorts of commitments also frequently lead to positive overall changes – and, of course, no one wants to make it to the day of the race – after having told all their family and friends that they were going to compete – only to pull out or walk away at the starting line.

Establish new habits and make accountability commitments upfront

One area where many people end up getting themselves into trouble when it comes to things like New Year’s resolutions, is by setting all sorts of ambitious goals, without focusing on establishing the right habit frameworks in order to facilitate the accomplishment of those goals.

When you are moving forward aimlessly – knowing that there’s a goal that you’re after, but not knowing what you should do to get there – this can certainly end up leading to a diminishment of your overall enthusiasm and energy.

One of the best things to do in order to help ensure that you’ll have a good chance of actually achieving your goals, while simultaneously remaining driven and motivated along the way, is to focus on establishing the right kind of habits so that you move consistently in the direction you want to, while at the same time making accountability commitments upfront, to keep you on track with those habits.

These accountability commitments may involve things like checking in regularly with your partner or relatives, or joining a club group that naturally encourages and supports the behaviors that you’re trying to develop.

For couples who are trying to maintain a harmonious balance within the household, with regards to things like chores, using a rota system and a joint habit tracking app may serve as a great way of ensuring that you are both properly in sync and are able to pursue your shared goals together more effectively in the New Year.

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